Tripura police say 15 million ganja plants destroyed in year-long Sonamura drive
Sepahijala superintendent of police Bijoy Debbarma said joint police, Tripura State Rifles and BSF teams destroyed at least 1.5 crore ganja plants in Sonamura subdivision over the past year, causing an estimated Rs 1,000 crore loss to the illegal trade. He said the crackdown lay behind a 2 November attack on a BSF team at Ashabari, after which police have arrested 21 people.
🇮🇳 Sonamura subdivision, Sepahijala district, Tripura · India
Joint teams of Tripura police, Tripura State Rifles and the Border Security
Force destroyed at least 1.5 croreganja plants in Sonamura subdivision over the
past year, Sepahijala superintendent of police Bijoy Debbarma said on 8 November
2026.[1][2][3][4][5][6]Debbarma estimated that the destruction cost those running the
illegal trade 1 billion rupees (Rs 1,000 crore).[1][2][3]Security agencies also
seized smuggled goods worth several crores of rupees during the period.[1][2][3][5]
He attributed the assault to losses suffered by smuggling syndicates because of
the intensified crackdown.[1][2][3][5][6]
Sepahijala district shares about 99 km of boundary with Bangladesh, nearly 99
per cent of it fenced.[1][3][5]About 300 families live outside the barbed-wire
fencing, where an India-Bangladesh agreement barring permanent structures within
150 yards of the zero line leaves room for smuggling.[1][3][5]
BSF personnel intercepted an alleged smuggling attempt along the international border in Ashabari on 2 November, after which the force came under attack.[1][5]
Despite nearly all of the roughly 99 km border being fenced, smugglers still move cattle, clothes, medicines, essential commodities and contraband across, the superintendent said.[4][5]The officer said the 2 November interception at Ashabari was part of the same intensified anti-smuggling drive, which he said had angered people involved in the illegal trade.[4]
Police had arrested 21 people, including two key suspects, for their alleged involvement in the 2 November attack at Ashabari, and a detailed investigation was under way.[5][6]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
The 1.5 crore plant count covers a period of about a year and no separate date is given for any individual operation.
No area, weight or independent audit of the destroyed plants was reported; the count and the Rs 1,000 crore loss estimate are the police officer's figures.
The sources do not say whether any cultivators or growers were arrested in connection with the destroyed plantations.
The 21 arrests relate to the 2 November attack on BSF personnel at Ashabari, not to the eradication work itself.
Left out, as its quotation was not found in ThePrint: Police arrested 21 people, including two key suspects, for their alleged involvement in the attack at Ashabari.
Left out, as its quotation was not found in ThePrint: Debbarma linked the destruction of the ganja crop to the 2 November attack on a BSF team at Ashabari, in which three personnel including an assistant commandant were injured.
Left out arrested, as its quotation was not found in ThePrint.
The News Mill credits the story to its own newsdesk but reproduces the same PTI interview with the Sepahijala superintendent as India Today NE, so the two outlets are not independent reporting.
The PTI copy repeats the same police briefing as the India Today NE report already cited, so it is not an independent account of the figures.
The article states that police have arrested 21 people over the Ashabari attack, matching the figure already in the Sonamura report; the separate Ashabari report on the attack does not record a different total from this account.
The Sentinel credits the story to agencies and reproduces the same police briefing as the PTI-based outlets already cited, so it is not independent reporting of the figures.
The Sentinel attributes the 21 arrests to the Ashabari attack without giving a separate date for the arrest total, beyond the 8 November police statement.
The Sentinel credits the story to agencies, so it repeats the same police briefing already cited rather than providing independent confirmation of the plant count or the loss estimate.
Police in Udaipur district uprooted and seized 779.79 kg of green ganja plants grown illegally in the hills at Khara Kupiya, Mandwa. Three NDPS cases were registered at Mandwa police station against three residents and investigation began.
Police destroyed 467 cannabis plants growing in a villager's house compound at Binayipur in Nabarangpur district, Odisha, and arrested him. The Nabarangpur police registered a case under the NDPS Act, and a sub-divisional police officer gave the account of the raid to reporters.
Koraput district police and excise teams destroyed 30,000 cannabis plants in joint raids, 12,000 of them at Atal Guda in the Boipariguda block and 18,000 in the Nandapur block, the district superintendent of police said. Koraput police said the Nandapur destruction covered about nine acres of hilly land near Kasandi and Dabuguda.
West Bengal police arrested 378 people in 212 NDPS cases and destroyed illegal ganja cultivation on 300 bighas, an estimated 10,000 kg, in an eight-day drive from 31 October to 7 November 2026. Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari said officers seized drugs worth about Rs 64 crore, a total covering other drugs too, and attached property worth Rs 1 crore.
